


pick bare the bones

by too_much_in_the_sun



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Gen, in which: absolutely nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2019-09-06 19:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: Victor goes out to do a good deed.





	pick bare the bones

**Author's Note:**

> Posted to Tumblr on 22 June 2014; the post says this is an excerpt, but this is all I have left. Probably there was gonna be another scene where Victor actually makes his house call, but I guess all we're ever gonna get is "ten paragraphs of Original Character and one of Canon Character".

From the hall window on the top floor of Mrs. Martha Sexton’s house, if you strained your eyes past the London haze, you could see the great dome of St. Paul’s, gracefully veiled by coal smoke. Few people did these days, now that only one man was renting on that floor, in the rooms that had once been servants’ quarters, but this morning, as she hauled herself up the steps and onto the landing, Mrs. Sexton stopped to look out the window.

This morning the fog was thick in the streets below, and St. Paul’s was invisible behind its curtain of white, but as she stood there, catching her breath, she could smell the Thames, and it gave her little hope. Some mornings, before the funk of the city settled back in, the river smelled clean, cold, and faintly salty, like a little ocean – but this morning, all she could smell was the sour rotten noisomeness of an ancient open sewer.

The tenant she had come to see was well-behaved enough, compared to some of the renters she had had in the years since her husband’s death. He was polite, quiet, always paid his rent on time. She wondered on occasion why it was he had wanted the great open hall where the lower-grade servants had once slept, and why she had heard noises of sawing and hammering from there, but so long as he continued to be a model tenant, it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. As long as the house didn’t fall down about their ears from his tinkering.

As she picked her way down the hallway, the ancient floorboards creaked and moaned under her feet. The sun had been up some time, but most of her clients were mechanics and, it being a Monday, they were still fast asleep.

When she stood before the green door, Mrs. Sexton hesitated. She straightened the front of her shirtwaist, tucked wayward strands of hair back behind her ears, and took in a deep breath. Usually her confrontations with her tenants came after a refusal to pay rent, or a loud fight, or nearly burning the house down. This time, she was aiming to negotiate for help, and it felt unfamiliar to be asking for kindness from a tenant, not obedience.

Having collected herself, she rapped on the door and listened for noise from within. Nothing. She rapped again. “Sir?” she called.

There was rustling, and the creak of an inner door opening. Footsteps approached, the heels of boots thumping against the floor – he must have laid carpet to dull the boards’ squealing.

Her tenant opened the door. She had caught him just in time; from his dress, he was just getting ready to leave for the day. “Yes, ma'am?” he said. He had his Gladstone bag in his hand.

“I need you to come look at my Polly,” she said, before he could dart past her and down the stairs. “I know you say you’re not really a doctor, Mr. Frankenstein, but I can’t afford to take her down to Saint Bart’s, and I’m afraid to move her. Will you please come down and have a look at her?”

For a moment he looked as if he were going to answer no, and walk past her and out of the house for the day. He drummed his fingers on the door.

“Well, all right,” he said. “I could use the practice. Lead the way, please.”


End file.
